ARRA and Homelessness

“Under Title XII of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is allocating $1.5 billion for communities to provide financial assistance and services to either prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless or help those who are experiencing homelessness to be quickly re-housed and stabilized.” copied from the Franklin Co. Ohio web site.

I checked Hamilton Co. (Cincinnati) and Montgomery County (Dayton area) and found something similar.  In order to get these funds, substantial changes needed to be made to programs already in place.

I wonder what became of the $1.5 billion? I was able to locate the third year report for Springfield, Ohio, which received about $816,000, but there were so many lines of requested information with “no information,” I really couldn’t read it. In the reporting year ending 2012, 42 people were served, 21 households.  Near the end, the compiler said Springfield already had a good program that was working when it received the money.

Like many grants in ARRA it was late getting out of the gate (the recession was technically over) or didn’t do anything about the economy.  A huge chunk of ARRA  ($19 billion) went for Electronic Medical Records assistance to force doctors into a system that was untried and had never been proven to save money.